REGULATIONS AND DETERMINATIONS

Senator WATERS (Queensland—Leader of the Australian Greens) (15:55): As Greens, we care deeply about protecting native forests, stopping extinction and cutting climate pollution. After careful consideration of complex regulation, the Greens party room has resolved to support an improved native forest management method because forest and habitat are inherently valuable, and because it helps us fight against the climate crisis.

Through negotiations with the government, the Greens were able to secure important additional protections for native forests that will significantly reduce logging and provide an assurance that native forests can't be reclassified as 'plantations'. These improvements will help deliver the Great Koala National Park, protecting 176,000 hectares of native forest and safeguarding habitat for around 12,000 koalas and more than 100 other threatened species.

And for the very first time, the Greens were able to secure a binding legal precedent to stop coal and gas from using these offsets. This is the start of a fight that the Greens will wage to stop all coal and gas from ever being able to use offsets, instead of reducing their pollution. But, let's be real, we are dealing with a Labor government that have approved 37 new coal and gas projects since they came to office.

Time and time again, they've shown that they're more willing to protect the profits of the big coal and gas corporations than to protect nature, the climate or the environment. By holding a national park hostage, Labor created a divisive choice between protecting native forests and challenging a broken carbon credit system. But I know this: we won't allow that choice to divide a movement that is united by so much more.

I'm proud that, as a party room, we've remained grounded in our shared commitment to protect native forests, protect nature and cut pollution. And I thank everyone who's engaged in discussions with the Greens over this matter. I want to acknowledge that this has not been an easy decision to make.

As my colleagues have said, reasonable minds with good hearts can differ on the outcome. But it is significant that, in the process of negotiating with the Greens over the INFM, finally, Labor admitted that they are able to treat coal and gas differently when they buy offsets. Labor has conceded the principle that coal and gas should not get the same access to offsets as everyone else.

Now the Greens will force them to apply that principle across the system, not just in the INFM, instead of continuing to give fossil fuel corporations a way to avoid cutting their pollution. For years, whilst letting them take our gas for free, Labor has set up carbon credit loopholes so that coal and gas corporations can buy their way out of actually reducing emissions.

It's a 'get out of jail free' card that lets them keep polluting, and it keeps coal and gas in the system for longer, all while communities face the worsening impacts of the climate crisis: severe flooding, devastating bushfires, debilitating heatwaves. Today's legal precedent is the first blow, but the fight to stop coal and gas from ever being allowed to use offsets to get a free ride is just getting started.

After achieving the first ban on coal and gas federally using offsets, the Greens are launching a fight to stop coal and gas from ever getting a free ride again on pollution reduction. We demand real pollution cuts to protect our climate, not accounting tricks. I'm announcing today that we will oppose Labor's upcoming carbon credits bill and move to block the new integrated farm and land management method that would allow the use of carbon credits to continue.

This would wipe out up to 40 per cent of the offsets used by coal and gas corporations to hide their emissions and would significantly increase the cost of polluting for big corporations, forcing polluters to actually cut their emissions. It's very clear that the majority of Australians want these corporations to pay their fair share for our resources and to stop getting a free ride in continuing to pollute.

So my message to them is this: the Greens are with you. To the coal and gas corporations: the days of your free ride are numbered.